Tony London
The threat of losing energy at vital facilities due to domestic terrorism is prompting local officials to take steps toward creating a plan to minimize any damage.
With a unanimous vote, the Bartholomew County commissioners have agreed to seek a $50,000 grant through the Indiana Office of Energy Development for the development of a community development security plan.
It will likely be very similar to the county’s hazard mitigation plan, which is meant to reduce loss of life and property by minimizing the impact of disaster, county Emergency Management Director Shannan Cooke said.
However, the security plan will be solely focused on energy development, she added.
An urgency to draw up this plan emerged about four months ago. In November, the FBI sent a report to private industries warned of an increase in reported threats to electric infrastructure.
According to the FBI, the threat was coming from people who espouse “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremist ideology,” with the aim of creating civil disorder and inspiring further violence.
Less than two weeks after the report was issued, a shooting attack was carried out on two electrical distribution substations in Moore County, North Carolina. The damage left up to 40,000 residential and business customers without electrical power for up to five days.
“This grant will allow us to recognize weaknesses and plan ahead, if or when anything like that happens here,” commissioners Chairman Tony London said.
If the grant is approved, city and county officials will meet with electric, gas and other energy entities operating in the county, Cooke said. Together, they will create a plan resulting in a better resiliency of energy for a prolonged period, as well as assist the community recover more quickly from major electrical outages, she said.
“We don’t mean normal power outages that may be a few hours to a day,” Cooke said. “We’re talking about longer-term power outages and energy losses caused by a natural disaster or something man-made, such as a cyber-attack.”
Planning session participants will work to identify security needs, Cooke said. That essentially refers to areas where restoring energy needs to happen quickly to power facilities necessary for the county’s critical infrastructure, Cooke said.
When the security plan is developed, an exercise will be held to go through the different steps of implementation, Cooke said. Such an exercise will identify problems and gaps that can be addressed before the final draft of the security plan is made, she said.
Although the Indiana Office of Energy Development requires a $5,000 match to provide the grant, Cooke said she has been assured that the local match could be made in-kind.
